understanding the wider organizational culture while interviewing my research participants is essential for my project. is anybody out there that could suggest good questions to ask in order to understand the wider organizational culture during the interview?
many thanks to all of you

epzds,

wow, that is a very open question! Organisational culture is notoriously difficult to grasp and as such not easy to define. "The way we do things down here" is a quote that comes to mind. There is a lot written regarding organisational culture, for example Handy, Kennedy, Mintzberg and Senge ("learning organisation") to name a few. I think you best approach is to read articles from these and then make your own list. Be aware that most people are not aware of the organisational culture so you will probably have to work with scenarios: What would you do if confronted with...

Good luck

thanks. very helpful suggestions.I do agree with you that it is a very vague question and is always difficult to make people talk about culture.
all the best

I agree that organisaitonal culture is a very broad concept, maybe it would be helpful to identify first which aspects of the organisational culture are more relevant to your research questions.

if organisational culture is important to you, there must be a reason and this would relate to a particular aspect of the organisational culture and your particular research. There are no questions that could be suggested to help you from such scant information.

thanks for the comments. I am particularly interested in change and why change happens or not within health care organisations and want to understand the context in which change happens or not.any thoughts?
many thanks

Hi, I am writing a thesis regarding organisational culture and human resources in international hotel chains. Thus, I need that people who work in one of them (whatever brandname it is) answers a few questions for me. If you are not one of them but you know some people who are, thank you to pass it on to your mates.
This would help me a lot in my research. The url address for the questionnaire is the one below.
Thank you very much.
http://my3q.com/home2/181/malandrot/56871.phtml

Malandrot, I know someone who is a manager in an International hotel and I will pass this on to him. No doubt he will have lots of contacts as well. Good luck with it.
Epzds, thanks for posting this very interesting question. This is something that anyone who is researching with individuals in organisations will want to know how to tap into. There is a book which I am going to recommend. I have to get around to reading it myself but it might be useful in the context of your question. "Good to Great" by Jim Collins